From Eve to Dawn Quotes

“Women fought for suffrage around the world. First to win it were New Zealanders, in 1893—but no New Zealand woman held a high-level political position until 1947. Women in South Australia won the vote in 1894, and it was the first state to allow them to stand for parliament, but other Australian women had to wait until 1947. Finnish women voted in 1904 after only twenty years of agitation; Russian women in 1917, after the revolution. Sometimes women won suffrage but remained barred from highlevel political life. In Norway, women won the vote in 1913, but did not begin to stand for high political office until 1945; Sweden, 1919 and 1947; the Netherlands, 1919 and 1956; Germany, 1919 and 1956; Brazil, 1932 and 1982; and Turkey, 1934 and 1971. In Egypt, men adamantly opposed woman suffrage until 1956. Other countries surrendered even later. But women won. And they won with only themselves—without weapons, political rights, or much wealth, they had only their minds, bodies, spirits, voices, influence, charm, rage, tenderness, and strength to turn the world around. And they did.”
― Marilyn French, From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 3

“Thus capitalism, which elevated patriarchy by turning its major value, power, into the only value, also destabilized it by enabling women for the first time in history to become economically independent.”
― Marilyn French, From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 3

“They saw women in the public sphere as whores, thieves, she-men with the audacity to carry guns and wear pants.”
― Marilyn French, From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 3

“men and women desperate enough to risk death to express their wishes.19”
― Marilyn French, From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 3

“Laws institutionalized men's unfounded superiority over women by defining marriage as ownership”
― Marilyn French, From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 3

“nineteenth-century feminism was defeated by men's adamant refusal to take responsibility for maintaining themselves and their children;”
― Marilyn French, From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 3